Entrada Gallery – M. Avery

Entrada Gallery – M. Avery

ENTRADA GALLERY:

M. Avery: Not An End Point

October 5 – 27, 2018

EXHIBITION DATES: October 5 – 27, 2018

OPENING RECEPTION: October 5, 2018, 5-7p

Statement:

The show entitled “NOT AN END POINT” describes and visually deciphers challenges facing the Territory today. We envision its many dead ends; nevertheless, a vastness of opportunity unfurls before those of us engaged in community building: following the great pioneers of yesterday to become the great pioneers of today.

Shear optimism of her 3,000 students is etched in the Blue Door series. Their tentative, often frightened, optimism needs consideration: those of us able to mold community need to consider, and strive to answer, our youth at the door who are frantically tumbling the locks of a digitally barricaded system called America.

Bio:

Searching for Truth, like the rest of the class of 1976 (nestled in the foothills of Santa Fe at St. John’s College), M Avery headed for the “outback” of the old Nuevo Mexico Territory. This Historic Territory was traditionally crowned by the Southern San Juan Mountains and traditionally guarded by the Sangre de Cristos Range below, and stretched in all four directions from the ancient Totah (Mesa Verde) of Rivers in four directions. After graduating from the University of New Mexico in 1980 with a Fine Arts Degree, the artist married a rancher. The two pioneers raised a family. M Avery traveled the width and breadth of New Mexico, weaving, writing, and teaching. From the base of the San Mateos (Victorio’s Peak) to the Nine Bar Ranch on the Eastern Plains, M. Avery absorbed the beauty of the wild New Mexico lands. Working the land the hard way fueled her abstracted landscapes and figures in landscape.

The beliefs of the Peoples of the Southwest, whether Navajo, Amish, or Spanish, or many other multi-faceted territorial populations, began to deepen and inform the geological backgrounds she sketched and painted. By 2014, disturbing trends and undulating politics in the field of teaching began to also emerge from the landscapes surfacing out of many travels and cultural immersion among the Apaches, Pueblos, and Mexican communities. It was the Spanish who guided her development: M Avery has lived and worked in eleven Spanish Villages, and taught within the Reservation (Pueblos twice: Acoma and San Juan, Apache in Dulce, and three Navajo: Shiprock, Alamo, Navajo north of Window Rock) boundaries a total of six times. She worked for four Tribal governments.

FINE ARTS INVOLVEMENT: M Avery has explored the intersection of media, culture, and image, as well as actual crafting of exhibits as an art student, Maxwell Museum Exhibits Shop crew member, 1979-1980. She served on one of the crews installing the ONE SPACE, THREE VISIONS, Museum of Albuquerque New Mexico opening exhibit.

M Avery has directed two Public School Art Departments: Bloomfield and Laguna Acoma Pueblo. Her first Art license was granted by the State of New Mexico in 1988 after internship Quemado K12.

Hands on and visuals motivated her students of all ages in academic achievement prek through post-secondary appointments, 1987-2018. The artist received the National Nomination to the Wall of Tolerance, 2001 (also known as the “Rosa Parks Wall”) as published in the Gallup Independent while teaching Language Arts for Gallup-McKinley Schools.

Barbara Conrad and Arriba Gallery Hours: Tuesday – Saturday10am – 5pm

Entry to Durango Arts Center galleries is always free. The galleries are closed to the public on Sundays and Mondays.